The transplantation of dopaminergic neurons in the brain has been attempted in experimental animals and humans as the new treatment modality of Parkinson's disease. Before the trial of dopaminergic neuronal transplantation in human, the authors proceeded with the animal experiment of fetal dopaminergic cell transplantation in a rat Parkinson's disease model. The aims of this experiment were to confirm the availability of fetal mesencephalic cells as the donor, to compare the viability of cells according to different cell manipulation methods, and to follow up the functional recovery in the transplanted Parkinson's disease model. As a result, the authors concluded that the simple enzyme digestion method had a better cell survival rate than the multiple enzyme digestion method. Also, the transplanted mesencephalic cells could not only survive in the host animal but also promote functional recovery.
Animal ; Corpus Striatum/*physiology ; Dopamine/*metabolism ; *Fetal Tissue Transplantation ; Male ; Mesencephalon/cytology/*embryology/metabolism ; Neurons/metabolism/*transplantation ; Parkinson Disease/*surgery ; Rats ; Rats, Sprague-Dawley ; Support, Non-U.S. Gov't